


Middle of the End

by UrbanMuzes (notenuffcaffeine)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Post-Episode: s05e19 Hammer of the Gods, gods and angels faceoff, season 5 relic, there's actually a lot of bloodshed in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 07:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14015250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notenuffcaffeine/pseuds/UrbanMuzes
Summary: When Lucifer takes over Sam, Castiel has a solution to the problem, but Dean is too angry to listen.  The brothers are stuck together with the consequences and the aftermath.





	Middle of the End

**Author's Note:**

> _____________  
> Fandom: SPN  
> Title: Middle of The End  
> Author: mladyhuntingdon  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Characters: Dean, Sam, Castiel  
> Pairing: N/A  
> Status: complete  
> Warnings: slight language, implied violence. Takes place after 'Hammer of the Gods' from season5.  
> ______________

"Dean! Get back!"

Rather than listen, Dean shoved back at the hands that tugged on his shirt. His attention was on his brother, some twenty feet away, awash in light and pain. "I'm not going to leave him!"

"You have to. Michael can find his brother." The voice of reason only pissed Dean off more and he pushed Castiel away.

"What about my brother!"

There was no answer, only the eerie electric silence and the nauseating tug at the neck that was the lasting side-effect of the angel's intervention. When Dean looked around, he realized he was back in their usual motel room, miles away from where Lucifer had cornered them. Dean was hunched over his knees as he got his bearings back, fought the disorientation that came with Castiel's preferred mode of travel. When he caught sight of the angel standing not far away, he clawed at the air in a sudden lunge for the other man's neck.

"You asshole!" The words a rasp, he got in to Castiel's space to shove the man against the wall. "Where are we? Where's Sam?"

"The vessel is with its master. If we had stayed, Michael wouldn't have been far behind."

The cold tone caught Dean by surprise. He hesitated as he ran the words back through his mind to be sure Castiel had really said what Dean had heard. He backed off a step in disgust at the betrayal on his brother's behalf.

"Bastard. That was Sam, Not a vessel. You just..."

"Saved both of our lives. That was not your brother." He sounded more like Cas now, but Dean still wasn't sure what to do with it. He scowled at the angel, his arms at his sides pulling in at slowly tightening fists.

"Yes it was. And you just left him on his own to fight the devil."

"Lucifer's there because Sam invited him," said Castiel. There was pain in the man's voice now, the anger of the innocent. Dean narrowed his eyes but Cas charged on in an effort to keep peace and his friend. "He betrayed you. All of us. Sam's gone. It's just a shell. A vessel."

If he had been on the right track with his sincerity, his words derailed the whole operation. Dean started toward him again.

"I'll show you a fucking vessel..."

The threat died as Castiel blocked the fist he had tried to put through the angel's borrowed skull. His hand closed around Dean's and the two men glowered at each other. "If Michael hears you..."

Dean glared at the logic, gradually pulled away. He jerked his arm free and paced away from Cas. The trench-coat sagged as even Castiel deflated from the fight. A heartbeat later he was back to business.

"I have a lead on the ring,” Cas said. “That's our only option now."

Dean hardly looked back at him, studying the wall near the door he was facing. "Get stuffed, angel boy. Take me back to Sam."

"No."

"Then we're done here." A moment later the hotel room shook, the wood complaining from the abuse of cheap metal as the door was slammed closed.

 

**********************

 

Dark hair shining in the soft, neon glow of a stop-light, the woman's sharp profile seemed mystic, beautiful. Powerful. A driver stopped his car just for her, the look on his face mottled stupefaction and predatory desire. The glint off a wedding ring against the steering wheel made the goddess smile; A broken vow was sacrificial worship.

It wasn't the same as a bloody altar, but these days she took what she could find where she found it. Reduced to scavenging under the radar. The man who waved her over would be praying to her soon enough. Kali pasted on a smile, inwardly loathing human weakness, and her own need of the creatures' attentions. The woman bent at the passenger-side window as it lowered, letting her chest talk to the dallying husband.

"H-how much?" he asked.

A knock on the window beside him startled the driver. A man in a trench-coat loomed at his shoulder, frowning.

"Marci asked me to tell you that the twins are colicky and she has the flu. She needs you at home. Now."

Whatever angry retort had been about to stutter out, it never made it as the man's lust cycled through to paranoia. He looked around uneasily, between the two people who leaned against his car, out at the trees and the buildings and the shaded windows.  
"How'd you know my..." Another moment's thought and the driver decided he didn't want to know; he liked his marriage, mostly, and he couldn't afford a divorce if his wife ever found out where he was. The car jerked forward as the light turned green, unbalancing Kali on her stilettos for a heartbeat as she straightened up again. She ignored the car as it sped away, her attention instead on the man that stood alone in the middle of the street who had dared interrupt her fishing. She knew what he was, and with a few moments thought, managed to conjure up the man's name.

"Castiel. You should know better than to interfere," she said. The woman's voice was whiskey, smooth going down but it left a burn. Castiel just nodded.

"It's important."

"I'm hungry. I don't care about your trifle Apocalypse."

"It will end you and your followers. I think you care. And I think you can help stop it, that's why I'm here."

Kali narrowed her eyes at him. She snapped her fingers and their location changed, no longer a street corner in the red-light district of Chicago and instead a corner bistro in Florence, Italy, in broad daylight. It was a bit nippy so she had traded in her harlot's tube-skirt for the height of power-suit fashion. A waiter appeared with her order as Kali motioned Castiel to the chair across from her. He eyed her meal - a discrete salad, slice of bread with honey, and a twenty-four ounce marbled and rare steak that was easily as large at the woman's head - and considered the wisdom of getting too close to the goddess. He settled in to the chair but kept his elbows off the table.

"Now how is it that you think I can help? My efforts at roasting your devil did nothing. It left a bloody mess and no time to enjoy it properly. Odin should not have fallen so easily. For now, I think he is hiding. I haven't found him yet, or anyone else." Kali shook her head, frustrated by the memories of the conference that had ended so very badly. Castiel was no god, but he was a different perspective on the matter, and if he felt he knew something she didn't, then she would welcome the discourse - for the time being.

"Yes, I saw your diligence in the search. Fully exhaustive," said Castiel, tone grim. Kali looked up at him sharply, obviously not amused by his open censure of her. She tightened a fist that rested on the table and Castiel felt the cords in his neck tightening, twisting, closing off his vessel's wind. He had angered the woman but wasn't overly concerned about it until he felt his body fighting to breathe. Kali glared at him.

"I am a god. It is not your place to question my methods," she said, quiet voiced and deadly. Castiel managed to shake his head, forcing back the woman's immortal magic to struggle free.

"Not my god."

The quiet rasp seemed to shake her and Kali released her efforts at punishment. She shifted her glare to her plate of food, stabbed and ripped at the steak with a vicious knife. She wouldn't argue with sound logic. While they may not have been equals, there was no sense getting in a pissing contest with another deity over the souls of their enlightened zealots, particularly when the zealot had no soul to give.

"What do you want?" she demanded. Castiel took a moment to recover, to let the woman's ire settle.

"The Winchesters. You took their blood."

"Yes, and I gave it back." Another piece of sliced, dead, meat was stabbed, angrily plucked from the plate. Castiel watched her for a moment, waiting her out. She didn't offer up anything further. He sighed, barely curbing his annoyance.

"No, you didn't. I need you to summon them."

"Find them yourself. I don't do your work," scoffed Kali. Castiel leaned forward, shaking his head.

"Lucifer found them. Sam said yes. But by the bloodrites, you own him."

Kali looked up, mildly surprised and fully intrigued. "He cannot say yes. I own the body Lucifer intends to use."

"He is using it now. But Lucifer has to have voluntary possession of soul and body. Sam may have sold his soul, but you possess the rest of him. Lucifer is getting frustrated because he can't control Sam well enough to do battle. He's stalling now. Eventually, Dean will break and let Michael in..."

"I own them both. Let him try," Kali said. She was smiling now, much happier by this turn of events.

"They will try, and if one of them succeeds, we're all done."

"Then I'll order them gone before they do."

Castiel sat back, a brief nod the only encouragement he was willing to give. Kali was temperamental and moody; he didn't want to risk angering her by 'ordering' her to do anything. As it was, she returned to her meal, thoughtful, almost giddy, or what passed for it for the goddess Kali.

Castiel waited in silence for a few minutes, glancing around to be sure Sam and Dean didn't pop up behind him. All he saw was the normal bistro traffic in a tourist town of Italy. The angel's neutral expression frowned again. He cleared his throat in polite interruption of the goddess' meal. She looked up at him, surprisingly unperturbed.

"You were going to summon them..." Castiel said hopefully. Kali nodded and waved him off. She motioned to her plate.

"After I've eaten. They won't start anything that you need to concern yourself over; not without me."

Annoyed, Castiel bit his tongue and kneaded at a growing headache. The stress was taking its toll on his accountant.

 

***********************

 

Even though he had many times reassured Sam that he didn't remember hell, Dean remembered everything. Well, almost everything. Bits and pieces of almost everything. Usually it showed up in the daytime, in the sun or around a fireplace. Heat triggered snapshots, sometimes the smell of burning flesh or the anguished sounds of torment manifested from a park with a hot dog stand and playing kids.

Just now, he was cold. Freezing fucking cold. He swore he was back in hell. Instead he was in a basement in Arizona somewhere. He wasn't sure how he was still conscious; in the movies and urban legends, people generally passed out before waking up in bathtubs of ice.

Dean never had been the lucky sort - most of his luck worked overtime just to keep him alive, and half the time that failed. This time around, he had been awake through everything and he wasn't sure he would be able to pretend to forget it. As the most recent torment, he had watched his little brother take a jagged hunting knife and carve into his insides with painful, murderous intent. Sam was talking the whole time, adding audio in full surround sound stereo, chock full of lies while he was at it.

It was enough to make Dean pray for death. He had seen Heaven, it wasn't so bad, and being destined as an Arch-Angel's vessel had to be good for something, even if it never got around to it, right? He wanted a way out, away from the pain of everything inside being torn apart and burned up. Away from the pain of watching his brother do it.

If anyone had the power to gut him and tear him up, even had the right to, it was Sam, but that didn't mean that Dean ever expected his brother would take a sibling's revenge that far. If Lucifer hadn't made Sam spend so much time talking it up like making the call was some kind of good idea, Dean might have prayed for Michael to escape it all.

The devil was good at getting in to his head, but he somehow hadn't caught on that Sam's 'voice of reason' was one that Dean had crafted an art form out of ignoring. Ol' Lucifer in his skin-suit just kept on talking and cutting, and Dean yelled solid stripes of blue-fire, from pain or frustration, helplessness, he couldn't remember after so many different abuses, but he never yelled for an archangel.

God, his gut hurt.

Dean's head swam with pain, images of his brother peppered in to peek out at him. Salt on a gaping wound. A tear slid down a well-established track along his cheek. He was so packed in ice that he could hardly move his head to wipe it away. He opened his mouth to give a frustrated shout, something to do, something to prove to himself that he still had options. No sound came out.

A door opened across the room, yellow light spilling across an otherwise blue-shaded room. Dean felt panic under the pain as blurry eyes opened to recognize his brother's shadow. The devil traveled with an entourage now, flunkies who laughed and fawned and groveled and cowered at the beast's elbow to make him feel better or something. Among them was a shaky, scared little human that Lucifer liked to use as a healer.

When Dean recognized the doc, he tried in vain to start shoving the ice away, to ask for help. For a split second, he thought he could move, forgot his brother scared him worse than a pack of feral hellhounds, and only remembered that help was coming. Even if he didn't like the guy. The spooky magic voodoo shit he could do made up for the creepy yuppie vibes that oozed off of him. When Dean couldn't move to appeal for help, he tried for sound again.

"J-j-just d-dooo eht." It was rusty and chattered, weak as hell and absolutely embarrassing, but Dean had more or less given up on pretense after the third day. It had probably been the sixth day but he hadn't bothered to ask anyone for a wall-calendar.

"Well, damn. Dean's still here, huh?" asked the devil. Or maybe it was really Sam. Dean was woozy; the lines were blurring. "Where's Michael?"

"N-n-noot here. Nottt com-ming." Dean's usually confident comebacks lost some of their oomph under a hundred pounds of ice and half-frozen water.

"That's a shame. I thought I'd etched those damn pesky signets off your bones well enough. He should have been able to find you by now." Lucifer snapped his fingers and the little yuppie scuttled forward to stand over Dean and the tub. "We'll just have to try again."

Dean would have backpedaled if he had been able to feel his toes. "N-no hurry."

"This whole thing would go a lot smoother if your brother would just say yes and die, you know. With him still kicking around, it... messes with the mojo. I should be able to fix you myself, just like that." Sam illustrated with a snazzier snap, putting some wrist behind it, but all it did was jerk at Dean's spine hard enough that he thought he might have broke. Whatever the bastard said next, Dean hadn't heard through the rush of blood and the sound of his own screaming.

The panic subsided when he saw the now very familiar glow of the healer-tweak's hands, and Dean closed his eyes and willed it to work. He wasn't sure it worked, however, when the centralized glow traded for a white-light-bomb that consumed the room. Then everything was black and Dean was blissfully unaware of it all.

 

**********************

 

The simple act of turning his own head, under his own power and at his own command, nearly made Sam cry. He had been stuck as a passenger for nearly a month, through horror after horror, and now that he was back at the wheel, he'd be damned if the first thing he did was cry.

Moving his arms followed turning his head, then standing up, then a full body shake to at once prove to himself he could do it, and a mental effort at shedding the essence of the fallen angel that had walked around in his skin for so long. Sam had a better understanding of the devil than any man would ever want; the entire time, all he had wanted was his own brain-space back. Now that he had it, he wanted to spend a few days in a shower and pay someone to invent brain bleach. He wanted-

"Oh shit! Dean!" Sam stopped his testing out of once-familiar body parts to focus on his immediate surroundings. It was very austere, boring, with faded colors and old furniture. He sat on a bed and there was a curtain beside him and... a hospital? He jerked back the curtain to see the corner of the room more brightly lit thanks to a frosted glass window, the glare from it stinging his eyes for a moment.

When they refocused, he recognized the trench-coated angel that stood beside it, on the other side of the second bed. Sam smiled, relieved to see Castiel even if the dour angel looked particularly long faced at the interruption.

Sam's gaze traced to the pile of pillows on the bed, saw his bruised and scraped brother sleeping and yet looking miserable. The joy Sam felt at being alone again was definitely hampered by the sudden return of the anger and self-loathing, the helplessness of what had happened since Dean had tracked down the devil.

He reached for the chair at the foot of the bed, only to discover it was already occupied. It took him a moment to recognize the goddess that lounged in the rickety seat and when he did, Sam recoiled quickly. He tried to be graceful about it, polite to some extent - he had fully experienced his share of pissing off any type of deity at this point - but he was apparently out of practice. She scoffed and rolled her eyes at him.

"Kali? What are you... I mean, Cas I understand but..." Sam's stuttering quieted and he shook his head, deciding he didn't care. He looked to Castiel, motioned to Dean. "How is he?"

"Castiel," the angel corrected him in his usual grouchy rasp. Sam frowned; that hardly answered his question, while simultaneously opened the door on others. He looked hopefully to the goddess beside him. She raised a brow at him.

"What? You don't expect bloody miracles to happen over night, do you?" she asked. Before he could answer, she shrugged her shoulders. "Well, perhaps sometimes they do, but don't expect it. Mortals are fragile."

"Yeah, I get that," said Sam quietly. He eased gently down against the edge of the foot of his brother's bed, not wanting to disturb Dean but wanting stupidly to be near him. There was an unsettled grumble that made Sam look hesitantly to Castiel. The disapproval on the man's face made it clear that no help would be had from that scowling corner, so Sam looked to Kali again. "Is he gonna be okay at least?"

The woman's shoulders straightened as though he had ruffled her pride and she raised a brow at him, folded her hands in her lap. "Yes, he'll be fine. Eventually. Once I get everything grown back inside as it should be. Like I said, it will take awhile."

"What about the glyphs?"

"Still there. On both of you. It's safer that way," said Kali.

"Lucifer tried to... he said he carved them off," said Sam.

"Demons lie," retorted Castiel.

"Well, I had to watch him do it, so I didn't figure he was lying this time," muttered Sam, increasingly unsettled by Castiel's attitude. The angel narrowed his eyes at him and Sam was afraid for a moment that the glare would actually start to bore through the side of his skull.

"What did you expect would happen when you invited him in?” asked Castiel. He was angry, but it sounded disappointed, betrayed more than anything. “I think it's been made clear enough that he wasn't planning on any tea parties for Michael. You risked everything on some half-cocked scheme that won't work..."

Sam looked up at him, jaw slack. "You think I did this? I mean... you think I said yes?"

The angel nodded, pointing off toward the door and past actions. "You can only argue with fate so long, and you told Bobby..."

"I was drunk! So was he! How the hell does he even remember that?"

Kali rolled her eyes, twirled her finger in Castiel's general direction. "Angel..." she reminded Sam.

Castiel looked briefly contrite but was quickly back to glowering at the tile floor. Sam did the same, unable to look at his brother just then with Castiel's words echoing around in his head. He had done that, and he knew it. Kali gave a bored sigh.

"If you two can't discuss it more quietly, at least one of you won't be discussing anything at all until you leave the room."

"Nothing more to talk about," said Sam, nearly growling himself. He shot a wounded glare back at Castiel. "A mind-reading angel should know that."

"I don't trust Lucifer," said Cas. Sam was frustrated but he made sure to keep his volume down, arguing in a loud whisper rather than in something more appropriate to his own frustration levels.

"Neither do I! And you think I'd let him ride me around..."

"You would if it served a greater purpose. Or at least if you thought it did."

There was nothing Sam could say to argue that; it was true enough that he wouldn't bother.

"I didn't give him permission to take over,” he said, firm and resolute on what he saw as a very important point. “He tried to cheat and it backfired on him. You should have kept Dean away longer."

"Take the sniping outside," said Kali. She sounded cross so Sam quickly backed off. He shook his head.

"I've got nothin' else to say."

Cas nodded his agreement. Kali raised a brow, nodded approvingly, then sat forward.

"Some ground rules then," she said. Sam looked up at her, pitifully confused.

"Ground rules?" he echoed. The woman nodded. She waved a hand toward Dean and then Sam.

"Don't count on this happening again," she said. Sam frowned, confused by the vague rule.

"What are you talking about?"

The woman tucked a hand to the collar of her low-cut shirt, the natural place for a well-endowed goddess to store the twin vials of red liquid she then dangled in front of Sam. "I gave you two the wrong vials. Oops."

Wide eyes stared at the woman as a sick terror settled in on Sam Winchester's gut. Trading an archangel for a goddess didn't seem like the best way to handle a bad possession.

"I'm not okay with this. H-he won't be okay with this..." Sam motioned to his brother. Kali gave him a flat, unimpressed look. It was more than obvious that she didn't care.

"You wouldn't be here if it weren't for her, Sam. You can't steer the devil. You had a month to try and it didn't work," said Castiel. "It doesn't matter what you think. It's done."

"You know, you are really starting to get on my nerves, Cas," sniped Sam. Cas tilted his head, gave a slight shrug.

"Good. It means you're finally listening," he said.

Sam opened his mouth but didn't have any response, instead looked up at Kali again, brow furrowed. She seemed to understand the hesitation.

"Relax. You have a long leash. Castiel says you have a solution to the Judeo-Christian Doomsday. You want to never see me again, then stop the angels’ quest," she said. She held up the bottles before tucking them away again. "I keep these. In case it becomes useful."

"It won't." Sam shook his head, adamant and already determined to never see Lucifer again.

"In case it does." The goddess left the implication to hang. She stood, collected her coat. On her way to the door, she nodded to the softly snoring Dean. "Leave him alone. He'll come around when he is repaired."

Sam followed the woman's gaze to his brother, but when he looked back up at her, she had gone. Taking the goddess at her word, Sam slunk over to the chair she had vacated, head dropping to his hands instantly. The first traces of tears were hidden easily that way and shoved away before Castiel could take notice.

All Sam had ever asked from life was 'normal' and instead all he ever got was freakish torment. His life was locked as a vessel for one set of monsters to destroy the world, a puppet on a string for another to barter with, and a general nip-toy for everything in between. He had lost count of how many times he had wished it all to end. Strange that he would have expected that to stop once he had his body to himself.

Instead, he was glad his older brother was in some god-imposed coma because he didn't think he could ever look Dean in the eye again. All of Dean's effort, their entire lives, all of his babying his baby brother along and playing the tough guy to fill in for John, and it was all for nothing. Sam hadn't been able to protect him at all to return the favor. It was all sitting on his shoulders. Dean was in as deep as he was, but that only made it worse.

Sam was alone. Sam was different. The same old Freak, with a capital F. Every way he turned, it was the same reminders, blocking his path back to his life. Sam had tried the hand the angels had set out for him, however involuntarily, and he didn't like life as a pawn. Jimmy Novack was one of Sam's new heroes, serving as dutiful meat-suit for an Angel. Capital A. Only for Sam, he was locked in a panic room with only one door, and the devil waited on the other side of it. He was out of ideas. He was tired. He wanted to be done.

The circling thoughts pushed Sam back to his feet so he could pace, wanting to leave but unwilling to actually do it. When he turned to look back at his brother's bed, Sam saw the familiar gaze watched him, half lidded and playing opossum. He started toward Dean automatically, relief washing over him that the man was awake. Dean's eyes opened like a shot and he scuttled back in to his pillows, arms up to block Sam's embrace. Dean recognized Sam well enough, but his brother might as well have been a hellhound. Sam drew back quickly, nearly tripping over his chair.

"Dean?"

"Just back off, Luci." The growl was pitiful, but proof that Dean hadn't given up yet, as much as it proved he wasn't awake yet, either. If it really had been Lucifer, Dean would have been all but killed without much of a fight. Castiel moved out of his corner then.

"It is Sam. Lucifer is... wherever you left him."

Dean just shook his head. "I don't believe you. You wanna know how many times I've been through this?"

"I wasn't there before, was I?" Cas raised a brow. Dean looked momentarily confused as he fought through a mental fog.

"Well... no... you weren't. Everybody else was. Especially the dead ones."

Sam stood frozen, afraid to speak up and afraid to turn and run out. Dean stared at Sam, afraid to even look away. Sam had to do something before he went insane.

"Dean... that wasn't me."

"Bullshit."

The knee-jerk response might as well have gutted Sam. He stumbled back a few steps, looked hopelessly to Castiel for help. The angel too was focused on Dean and didn't seem to notice.

"Dean. That is Sam. Kali pulled him out."

Dean looked over at Castiel finally, brow raised. "What? There's some kind'a god-mod failsafe?"

"Sorta." Sam was afraid to say anything but he was a few heartbeats away from a mental break down of vegetable proportions; he would try anything to keep him moving forward. A light seemed to click on and Dean looked between the two men.

"Cas?"

The angel shrugged. "Lucifer isn't here. He can't find you."

"Then why the fuck did it take so long for this failsafe to kick in?"

"Kali wanted to finish her dinner," said Castiel. The flat tone and grimace on his face showed his opinion of the goddess well enough.

"Well that's nice. Hope it poisoned her." Dean huffed and started taking cautious inventory of his remembered injuries, finding none of them there. He still shot uncertain glances up at Sam every few seconds, keeping track of his brother's position in the room. To make it easier on Dean, Sam dropped in to the chair to keep himself from his pacing. The nervous fidget he couldn't do anything about, but at least Dean stopped looking at him like he was some sort of creeping demon. Well, at least not the creeping part.

After a little while, Dean was satisfied that he was whole even if his head hurt like hell, and he turned his study to Sam. His little brother held his breath, waiting for some kind of long lecture, a diatribe on broken trust and the long list of inhuman things brothers don't do to each other that Lucifer had spent so long working his way through trying to break them both. He was completely unprepared for what Dean said instead.

"Then, are you okay?"

 

***********************

 

The sandwich in front of him was nearly five inches tall, glorious gobs of mustard and mayo oozing off the sides over layers of thick slices of ham and pastrami and sliced steak. And bacon. Oh, there was bacon. And yet the gaze boring in to the side of Dean's head from across the table was making the oft-dreamed about meal a chore to enjoy. He took another deliberate chomp before wiping his mouth on his sleeve and glancing up at his brother.

"Stop it, Sam."

Sam just frowned at him. He looked worried, like he was somewhere between bolting for the door and wrapping Dean in blankets to start plying him with hot chocolate and chicken soup. Or pie. Dean eyed the tin of pie beside his plate. Sam fidgeted.

"Are you alright?" The sincere and urgent tone caught Dean's attention and he raised a brow.

"Are you?"

"No, I mean really alright." Sam shook his head and leaned forward, opened his mouth to say more. Dean beat him to it, reluctantly setting down his sandwich as he did. He crossed his arms over the edge of the table and studied his brother.

"Look, man, you're back to normal. Good ol' Sam. No more of the black and yellow eyed shit. Right? We still on the same page there?" He motioned between them and tried to focus beyond the call of the pie so close to his fingers. Sam nodded quickly.

"Yeah, but...."

Relieved, Dean shrugged it off and let his attention return to his sandwich. He was half-starved, and having a hard time figuring out how to handle what he could tell was on Sam's mind as a big-brother should handle it. He was much more comfortable ignoring it entirely in favor of eating. "Then I'm fine. You're fine. Everybody's dandy. Leave it alone."

Sam jerked, a skiff at dock on a short tether. He pressed a palm to the table top and leaned over it, a little closer to Dean so he could lower his voice. But not too close. "Damnit! I know what I did, Dean. Stop... babying me."

Dean choked before the sandwich had even reached his mouth. He wasn't willing to lower the shield of the sandwich, but eating it seemed a little less important. "Excuse me?"

For once in their lives, his little brother seemed to be at a loss, stumbling on his words. Sam coughed and started over. "When I was... I mean, he was... when I was under, I could still see everything, you know? I could hear. I wasn't asleep or... or dormant or whatever. I know what happened."

Dean's attention fell to the table. "Really? That was you in there, calling the shots?" Body language shifting, he sat a bit straighter and his tone went a little flat with the rhetorical question, despite his best efforts. Sam was quick to shake his head.

"No! I couldn't even pick my nose." Sam even sounded pitiful. Dean looked up at him without lifting his head.

"Then shut up. And leave it. Alone."

Sam nodded. The nod usually reserved for when he thought Dean was an idiot expecting the impossible. He still looked miserable, though, so that wasn't exactly the case. The man leaned his elbows on the table and rubbed his face with his palms. "How?"

"I dunno. Think of fluffy little kittens maybe? We do have a job to get back to." Annoyed, Dean turned his attention back to his sandwich, no longer as hungry as his body said he should be. There was a long silence between the two, the rumblings of the dead cafe around them hardly even noted. Sam let out a frustrated sigh and shook his head, shoved his hair from his face.

"I don't want to."

The sandwich was picked up out of spite, Dean shaking his head. He still wouldn't look at his brother, preferring to glare at the table. "Sammy, I think you've lost it. We kinda have to. Now more than ever, if you ask me."

"Maybe not. Jesse. He just... left. Why can't we? They can't find us." Sam's hands spread plaintively, his new-best-idea laid out on the table between them as he studied Dean. His brother scoffed.

"They'll figure out how. No offense to Cas, but let’s just say I've got full faith in the bastards, well, doing what they're good at."

"Maybe they won't."

"Maybe pigs'll fly instead. Really, Sam? You want to quit, now?" Dean couldn't quite wrap his mind around it. After everything they had gone through, after single-handedly dying enough times to fill a cemetery and personally enduring eight levels of hell, who knew how many layers of heaven; after the last month of playing puppet to the devil...

Dean was more determined than ever to close the whole damn book and kick supernatural ass. And Sam wanted to turn and run? Dean stared up at him, confusion hidden well behind open skepticism. Sam just nodded faintly. He pulled on his Harvard-face and sat a little straighter, doled out his best sales-pitch to deaf ears.

"Right. I don't want to play anymore. So we don't. If the whole thing hinges on us, we walk away. Then it's done. If we die old and cripple, there won't be vessels worth using in war."

Dean nodded but not like he agreed with any of what was said. "And in the meantime the war goes on and the world goes further down the tubes. Crazytalk. We're not quitting. It won't stick."

Sam sunk back in his chair, defeated as Dean scowled at his sandwich and shook his head. The resolution restored a little of his appetite and Dean worked at a long-abandoned corner of the monster on his plate. His little brother was still distressed.

"Dean... I can't do that again."

Dean's jaw went slack, brows lifted, eyes narrowed, all an unconscious rejection of Sam's quiet outburst. The precious messy sandwich was placed back on the plate before Dean gave in to the urge to throw something.

"Wait. You can't? Seriously? You think it was a cake-walk for the rest of us? For me?"

Sam shook his head adamantly. "No! I saw it all. And I got the running monologue. The constant play-by-play. He wasn't out to kill you, Dean. He wanted you desecrated. Slashed and burned and ruined, to weaken Michael."

"Yeah. Think I figured that part out." Dean scowled and leaned his elbows on the table, arms crossed to at least sarcastically engage in the conversation that his brother wouldn't let die. Sam matched the language, leaning forward in the hopes of convincing Dean.

"Then stop playing their games! If we stop this, stop hunting, stop looking for the rings, they can't find us. It won't happen again."

There was a long silence between them then. Dean didn't look impressed and Sam started to get a little frustrated. Dean let out a sigh, that annoying neutral expression on his face for no reason other than to further rattle his brother.

"Look. Unless they fundamentally change the English language, and a few dozen others, so that 'no' translates to 'yes' in Angel-talk, we know what happens when they try it without the vessel's consent," said Dean. "We've got 'em on that. The host body's fighting the bastards enough that they can't fight each other. So we just say no. We find the other rings. We end it that way."

"What if he finds us again?"

Dean shrugged, attempting for nonchalance. "He'll just have'ta ask nicely this time. And you tell him no and we leave again. Fast."

Sam's shaggy hair was in bad need of a haircut, flip-flopping as it was side to side as the man shook his head. "I don't know how to fix it. In my head, I mean. You're my brother and I... I... The stuff I did..."

A finger raised quickly, stabbing toward Sam barely inches from his nose as Dean hunkered toward his brother to lower his voice again. "I know what you did. I was kinda there. And if you ever mention it again, I will kick your ass. Literally. Knock you to the ground and bloody my shoes. Got it?"

The dangerous intent hung between them for a long moment before Dean finally encouraged a nod out of Sam. He tucked his hands back to his elbows and forcibly shrugged it off. "We've got a lifetime of other shit to dwell on. Pick something else that's actually your fault, alright?"

Sam reluctantly turned to his own sandwich, not much more conservative than Dean's but his appetite had failed him soon after the spread was paid for. "Come on. The only reason we're not still there is Kali. I wasn't doing anything to stop it. If she hadn't pulled us out of there, you would still be in that room. I'd still be a reverse-zombie."

"And if Michael had tried to cheat like ol' Luci, I'd be lookin' at you now like you keep lookin' at me,” said Dean with a shrug. “Don't take it personal, but it's creepy as all hell."

Sam raised a brow at him, tapped a steak-fry experimentally against the sandwich roll. "I don't see how not to take that personal."

"Just knock it off. If I can get it out of my head, so can you," said Dean. His attention had gone back to his plate but he hadn't touched anything yet. Sam frowned, looked up at him briefly, completely pitiful.

"I'm trying."

Dean raised a brow, a corner of his lips lifting. "And nobody knows that better than me, little brother. But think like that little green muppet on this - There is no try, just do it."

The sage wisdom was predictably ruined by a flawed delivery. Sam tilted his head, almost smirked. "A little green Muppet wearing Nikes?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

The baffled Dean waved him off before innocently motioning toward his waiting sandwich. "Whatever. Will it make you feel better if I kick your ass? Then we can call it even and get back to our dinner in peace."

Sam choked on his fry. "N-not really?"

Dean reached out and shoved at the edge of the plates to move the food closer to his brother. "Then shut up an' quit thinkin'. Eat your pie before I do."

 

**The End**


End file.
